Scrawl by Mark Shulman

I know what you think
You think I'm fixable, don't you?
You want to fix the bad guy.
You don't know the half of it.

Tod Munn is in trouble. Most of his teachers think he should be in juvie. Even Tod is unsure why he is in a daily detention writing in a notebook (NOT a journal) for Mrs. Woodrow. That notebook is Scrawl, the new novel by Mark Shulman.

Tod is a good writer and an even better speller but his troublemaking droogs, uninterested family and especially his anger could be his undoing. As the details of Tod’s exploits are revealed, Shulman’s readers find out that all is not as it seems. Tod is a blunt, yet entertaining narrator and Mrs. M is a smart, caring adult.

I was afraid the novel would turn into many stereotypes, but this measured story never wanders from a realistic depiction of a teen dealing with his anger and self troubles. At times while reading, I wished for there to be more to the story, but this is a solid effort.

I would recommend this to fans of Sherman Alexi’s The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian and Happyface by Stephen Emond.

The History Boys: Why do we learn?

Why do we learn? Is our time in school merely a practicality, time to learn the tricks to pass the tests to get into the schools to get the jobs to be “successful”? Or does education have a duty to form us as humans and speak to deeper questions of life? In an age of standardized testing and disappearing arts budgets, these are the questions brought to the fore by our education policy; in his 2006 Tony award-winning play, The History Boys, Alan Bennett explores them through a class of nineteen eighties English schoolboys preparing for their university entrance exams and the two teachers trying to shape them along the way.

The Big Crunch

I think it's really hard to write a love story that feels different from all those love stories that have already been written. How to make your love story offer something unusual to readers? Well, some authors solve that problem by making one of their falling-in-love characters a sparkly vampire hottie. That is not what Pete Hautman did. He did something cooler. He made his characters normal. Very normal.

I love this idea.

I love this idea because it is true. Normal people fall in love. Their stories deserve to be told every bit as much as the stories of sparkly vampire hotties. The awesome miracle of love is in no way enhanced by characters' sparkly-ness. Love is awesome no matter what. I promise that when you read The Big Crunch, you will be convinced that normal, non-sparkly love, is wonderful, and not in a cheesy way.

(Just in case you can't tell, I'm kind of in love with this book).

Conflicted over if this works or not

So Shelly by Ty Roth
"Until now, high school junior, John Keats, has only tiptoed near the edges of the vortex that is schoolmate and literary prodigy, Gordon Byron. That is, until their mutual friend, Shelly, drowns in a sailing accident.

After stealing Shelly's ashes from her wake at Trinity Catholic High School, the boys set a course for the small Lake Erie island where Shelly's body had washed ashore and to where she wished to be returned. It would be one last "so Shelly" romantic quest. At least that's what they think. As they navigate around the obstacles and resist temptations during their odyssey, Keats and Gordon glue together the shattered pieces of Shelly's and their own pasts while attempting to make sense of her tragic and premature end."- summary from Amazon

I'm not sure what to say about this book. The concept as well as the narrative itself is interesting, but at the same time, I feel like it just didn't work for me. The narrator doesn't do much of anything and is mainly just relaying stories about the past featuring the other characters Shelly and Gordon. Even in the scenes set in the now with Gordon and Keats fulfilling Shelly's final wish, Keats takes a backseat to whatever Gordon does and goes along for the ride, so it can be a bit boring for the reader.

Taking three historical figures and transplanting them and their real stories (with some liberties taken, of course) in our society was a wonderful idea. It's very fun, but educational in a way at the same time. So the concept was very cool, but I'm not sure the execution worked for me. I did like the atmosphere that was set up- it felt very Romantic (period-wise, not love-wise) so that was nice to see. The afterward that Roth wrote is very informative and it was cool to see how he wrote the book as well as what stuff actually happened because there are tons of scandalous things in this book, which I of course love. :) But this is definitely a dark, deep book, and that could be why I wasn't as into it since I may not have been in the mood for that kind of read.

Overall, while I liked the idea, the execution fell flat for me and I almost put the book down several times because I just didn't really feel anything for the characters, but at the same time, I wanted to see how it would all end and why Shelly died. That's why I kept going. This is a confusing book for me to review because I'm not sure about my recommendation; I guess it just falls in the middle- it's not horrible, but it's not amazing.


So Shelly will be released in hardcover on February 8, 2011 from Random House.

It's About Mindfulness

Here is a short novel that I can recommend: Buddha Boy, by Kathe Koja.

"Like a flashback memory, he's there in my mind: skimming up the stairs at school, his sloppy old T-shirt big as a sail, red tie-dyed dragon T-shirt, who wears stuff like that? No one. Jinsen. Head turned and laughing at something someone had said, to him? at him? I don't know. Once McManus called him a human lint ball, and he laughed about it all day."

"Do you know the concept of karma? It's kind of like a circle, or cause-and-effect, like a slow tolling bell you rang maybe a year ago, five years ago... Karma means that what you do today, and why you do it, makes you who you are forever: as if you were clay, and every thought and action left a mark in that clay, bent it, shaped it, even ruined it... but with karma there are no excuses, no explanations, no I-didn't-really-mean-it-so-can-I-have-some-more-clay. Karma takes everything you do very, very seriously."

the mother of all nor'easters

What with recent snows in the South and along the Atlantic seacoast there's been a lot of chatter about various snowpocalypses (snowpocalypsii?) recently, but seriously, what would happen if a blizzard went on for a week and dumped over 18 feet of snow?  Would you be prepared? Do you think you could survive?

Now, imagine you're in a high school, you're one of seven kids and one teacher who didn't get out while the roads were clear. The blizzard has made it so you have no connection with the outside world, and despite the fact that you are missing, no one has any reason to believe you're still at the school and need to be rescued. What happens then?

This it the premise of Michael Northrop's Trapped, a taut, first-hand tale of survival among Scotty Weems and his six schoolmates who, for a variety of reasons, are trapped inside their high school at the beginning of the Blizzard to End All Blizzards.  As Scotty narrates the story from the vantage point of surviving it, he keeps the reader at arms-length from knowing exactly how it will all turn out but he isn't coy about admitting up front that not everyone makes it out alive.

ARR you ready for some haiku?

Pirate Haiku: Bilge-Sucking Poems of Booty, Grog & Wenches for Scurvy Sea Dogs by Michael P. Spradlin is a small collection of pirate-related haiku that is likely to appeal to fans of humorous poetry and piratical antics. When I say it is small, I mean it in two different ways:

1. The trim size of the book itself is smaller than your usual tome. It measures 6" x 5" x 1/2".

2. There may be 185 poems in this book, but each one is a mere 3 lines (totalling 17 syllables) so . . . it's not a lot of words, I guess, is what I'm getting at.

When I think of books of this sort, I immediately think of the (sometimes disgusting but always entertaining) work of Ryan Mecum, whose collections Zombie Haiku, Vampire Haiku and Werewolf Haiku have been featured here. This book is truly different. For one thing, it's not about monsters, unless, of course, you consider pirates to be monsters - and certainly they do monstrous things sometimes, but it's not quite the same. Second, Pirate Haiku lacks the same degree of unified narrative as the Mecum books, although it does manage to put one together, telling the tale of One-Leg Sterling, a pirate who works his way up from crewman to captain the old-fashioned way: by mutiny! Quite a number of the haiku in the collection are the equivalent of one-liners. Like, say, this one:

Pirates like the dice
Except when they are loaded.
Er, the dice, that is.

Or this one:

Pirates are simple.
We like rum, guns, wenches. And
Women like bad boys.

He spends some time marooned on one of Japan's islands where he learns martial arts, which leads to some really interesting shipboard battles as the book progresses. :

I learn FACE-KICKING,
Which will come in handy when
I go back to sea.

Marines and merchants
Don't expect to get faces
Kicked when they are robbed.

And hey, along the way, the book manages to answer the question: Pirates or Ninjas?

You can check out the book and its author quite a bit more at the Pirate Haiku website, which contains amusing things like a video and excerpts from the book.

Into the breach, steampunk style

Cherie Priest continues to explore her Clockwork Century world with Dreadnought, which focuses on the cross-country journey of Civil War nurse Mercy Lynch. Mercy is traveling to see her long lost father but finds herself in the middle of the War, which includes a zombie-filled mystery to boot (no kidding) before she reaches him in Seattle. If that all sounds a bit outlandish, then really you need to read Priest’s earlier books, Boneshaker and Clementine, so you can set yourself firmly in an America that never was, filled with the sort of airships we wish had been invented, trains that pack a powerful wallop, as well as Pinkerton detectives, Texas Rangers and, of course, zombies -- but not the zombies you are used to, because these are zombies created by a gas released from a machine that tunneled underground in Boneshaker and turned the Pacific Northwest on its ear.

Mercy Lynch is a nurse in a war without end, and upon receiving devastating news, finds herself unwilling to deal with death any longer. Her decision to seek out her father takes her on a steampunk version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, but with an airship, a boat, and a steam-driven train that is being pursed by the deadliest train the war has to offer. There are also a lot of questions ranging from “what dread disease is killing veterans” to “what happened to the missing Mexican soldiers” to “what is hidden under heavy guard on this blasted train.” None of these questions have good answers, though, and as much as Mercy would like to ignore them, she is not the “sit back and do nothing type,” and thus finds herself in the middle of the action with guns blazing and a determined glint in her eye. Mercy will get to Seattle come hell or high water, and Priest very nicely keeps her and her fellow passengers battling along the entire trip.

There is everything to like about Dreadnought from Mercy herself to Priest’s fresh yet familiar perspective on the war. The battle violence reads as right out of the history books, while the fictional techno flourishes keep things fun. This is an author at the top of her game and consistent in her dedication to making steampunk as much a part of the American landscape as its traditional Victorian London roots. Appealing on every level, the Clockwork Century titles are tailormade for teen readers and heartily recommended for light reading fans.

Crossposted from Bookslut.

Hitman -- Garth Ennis & John McCrea

After reading the news about the upcoming television adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis' Alias comic, I wanted to re-read the books. So I headed up to the attic to look for my copies.

I never found them, though, because I got distracted by Tommy Monaghan.

He's a superpowered hitman. He uses telepathy and x-ray vision and his unbeatable aim (not superpowered, though those he comes up against may wonder) to take out superpowered targets. He's got a moral code, though, and only goes after the bad guys.

He doesn't even use his superpowers to cheat at cards, though he's been known to use telepathy to get in good with the ladies. He's not out to save the world -- he just wants enough money for beer and cigarettes. And, someday, to retire to somewhere that isn't Gotham City.

The Walking Dead Compendium 1 by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard

I like Rick Grimes. Really, I do. He's done some horrible...ok, downright deplorable... things - and on top of that he hears voices (his dead wife) and he apparently never sleeps - but there is still a core heroism about the man that drives the narrative of Robert Kirkman's ongoing comic The Walking Dead.

If you haven't heard of the The Walking Dead, you probably haven't turned on a television in a while, as Kirkman's serial has now been successfully adapted into a television series by writer/director Frank Darabont (of Shawshank Redemption and Green Mile fame) on the AMC network. The comic has been published for over five years, though, so there's a wealth of story to catch up on...and, anyway, the TV series is a distinctly separate entity. Some of the plot points intersect between the two, but it's clear they will also part ways fairly often. I suggest reading the comic first, then watching the subtle changes unfold in the AMC series.

With the proliferation of vampire and zombie novels and comics out there, it's easy to dismiss The Walking Dead as just another zombie cash-in. This could not be further from the truth. Sure, there are zombies a-plenty throughout the series (the beginning of which will remind you of Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later), but it's the human characters who are the heart and soul of this comic. Following them, watching their lives devolve, watching them try to hang on to the last shred of human morality, is riveting stuff. This is no mere horror comic. It is a full-fledged serious (perhaps even domestic) drama played out within the confines of the zombie apocalypse. These are real, fully-developed characters and Kirkman has a no-holds-barred approach to their fates. Indeed, it's his willingness to allow characters a life (and death) of their own that continues to raise tension among readers. The longer a character survives, the more a chance he/she has of dying. There's no way to predict where this story is going to go.

Which brings me back to Rick Grimes, who, for all intents and purposes, is the protagonist of the series, even if the term "hero" seems far-fetched at this point, given his behavior and, often, his actions. Roger Ebert once wrote that the reason Schwarzenegger was an effective, appealing action movie star was because he didn't seem to be enjoying the violent acts he visited upon people. He was a man pushed into circumstances beyond his control and forced to do the unthinkable, but always with the jaw-jutting motivation of a man trying to do right in a world gone wrong. So it is with Rick Grimes.

Do yourself a favor and track down a copy of the HUGE Walking Dead Compendium. It won't get you completely caught up, but it will take you a long way there - and you may just find that you read this massive tome in one sitting. It's that damned good.